The recent revelations of layoffs at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital are troubling for Islanders, and how we learned about them and the questions we still have about them raise some important questions about transparency and accountability.
Our reporting shows that up to 20 staffers were laid off but it’s still unclear exactly what positions and how many because our questions have gone unanswered from the hospital’s corporate office in Boston. That lack of transparency fuels speculation that has been lingering on the Island that the hospital is losing its community feel to its corporate owners. It was symbolised during the rebranding effort two years ago that included a new sign with its glaring Mass General Bringham logo looming large over “Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.”
The details of the layoffs remain unclear, but they began with a first round in February. A second round, seemingly more significant, was announced in recent weeks. As a spokesperson at Mass General Bringham’s Boston office explained, the moves are part of a consolidation plan across the larger hospital system. The Boston Globe reported the system is facing a $250 million budget shortfall, and that some 1,500 positions may be cut, out of 82,000 employees across Mass General Brigham’s network.
In speaking with staff at the Vineyard hospital whom we agreed to keep anonymous — some did not want to use their names out of fear that they could lose their separation agreements — anywhere between a dozen and 20 people appear to have been laid off on the Island in February and March combined. Many of those were Island residents, from what we understand.
What positions exactly were cut remain unclear. The jobs were not nurses or doctors, from what we have been told, nor upper management; most worked in the hospital’s finance department, handling tasks including getting insurance referrals and recovering losses from billing errors.
Beyond that, details are sparse. There’s been a hesitancy from local hospital officials to speak to the layoffs, likely because they have been muzzled by the Boston office. All questions to the local hospital from our reporters — what departments were impacted, whether more layoffs are coming, who was impacted — were referred to a Boston office, where they declined to discuss specifics.
That is troubling. The decision to lay off several workers and not allow local officials to speak to the issue is the act of a large corporation trying to protect its entity, and not a hospital helping a community that deserves to understand the breadth of its decisions.
There was also a coldness, as described by staff, as to how the decisions were made. One employee we spoke to, an Island resident who worked at the hospital for years, said she was insulted, and felt like her supervisors were reading from a script from the corporate office without consideration for who she was or that she had dedicated her career to the hospital. “The people that they let go were not nameless, faceless people; many were Islanders. And that just hurts,” one employee told us.
To be clear, the Vineyard hospital is a great hospital, and our community is fortunate to have this institution and the local staff who serve the Island, and there are serious benefits to joining a major hospital group. Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s merging with then Massachusetts General Hospital was announced in 2006, and the partnership helped the hospital land funding to build its new, state-of-the-art facility. More importantly, it has given Islanders access to world-class doctors and healthcare provided by Mass General. That service has been a great boon to the Island, and the rest of the country, and even the world, should be envious.
And we would be remiss not to note that there has been tremendous leadership at the Island hospital. That leadership was on full display during the COVID-19 pandemic, when hospital CEO Denise Schepici navigated the Island through the pandemic, providing a steady and reliable voice at a time when the world was far from steady. The Island owes a great deal of gratitude to her.
But there is a lack of transparency that came with this recent decision. We hope it doesn’t come to fruition, but one worry is that there could be an impact to donations. The philanthropic community plays a significant role in the bottom line of the Island hospital. And not answering the community does not bode well for prospective donors.
We would like to remind Mass General Brigham that it serves the people of the Island, and allowing the local leadership to answer Islanders would go a great distance to maintaining a respected position in the community.
We are still waiting for a comment from the Boston office. Our newsroom desk is at 508-693-6100, ext. 101.
